08
Dec 2017
We are crossing an important milestone this year as we intentionally raise support for Father Eirik’s full-time ministry to Light of Christ. How exciting! This step is an affirmation of our mission to reach our communities with the love, hope, and healing of Jesus Christ. This past Sunday, we were encouraged by the Apostle Peter’s declaration that we are a royal priesthood. One way we express our priesthood is by offering ourselves: our spiritual gifts, resources and prayers. On the final Sunday of Epiphany, February 15th, we will ask you to pledge......
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08
Dec 2017
It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke: “Four Priests and a Deacon walk into a restaurant…” In a way, two otherwise insignificant days in the middle of January were a bit of a joke, but the type of joke that only brings joy and light. A joke that reflects that great cosmic joke, the moment Jesus rose from the dead to defeat sin and death, and all creation smiled and laughed. Well, it wasn’t all creation this past week, but at least a few acres along Interstate 94 throughout Wisconsin......
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08
Dec 2017
Part 3 of our Stories of Love, Hope and Healing focuses on healing. This is Dan Cornelius’ story. When Dan Cornelius first began coming to Light of Christ, he was struggling to break free from drug addictions that had begun with prescription drugs. Consequently, his marriage had ended and his visitation rights to see his children had been suspended. Dan says he knew God was going to help him overcome his addictions, but he was waiting on God’s timing. When he came to Light of Christ, he knew it was time. “It felt like......
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08
Dec 2017
Part 2 of our Stories of Love, Hope and Healing focuses on hope. This is Rowan Conley’s story. Rowan Conley grew up in a Christian family in Colorado. Through her teen years she became extremely rebellious and turned away from her faith in God and the church. At the age of 18 she found herself pregnant and due to family expectations, she was married and raising a family by 19. She moved to Kenosha shortly after her first marriage and subsequently was divorced within a few years. After that marriage failed, Rowan’s......
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08
Dec 2017
Christmas Eve 2014 Dearest Upper Midwest Family: Merry Christmas! I have just returned from a most remarkable two weeks in the Archdiocese of Jos in Nigeria. It was a time of such rich Kingdom experiences that I am sure I will be absorbing them for months to come. We had the privilege of visiting a church under siege–truly a persecuted church. Indeed, even in our time there a bomb blast occurred in downtown Jos. But our brothers and sisters there carry on with a Gospel courage and focus–a focus on the lost......
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08
Dec 2017
Advent begins our liturgical year and is a season of anticipation as we look forward not only to Christ’s birth, but also to his triumphant return in glory. As we look for the light of Christ to break into our community with love, hope and healing, we lean into the hope we have in Christ’s transforming presence. Our sermons this Advent will focus on what happens when we allow our longing for the King of Glory to actively shape our relationship with God. Adult Sunday School In adult Sunday School we......
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08
Dec 2017
A good vision statement pulls people together, keeps them coordinated, helps them to be faithful stewards of who God has gifted them corporately to be, and how He has especially inspired them to minister in their time and place. Like a good sermon, it is an application of a timeless call, a helpful and encouraging interpretation of the particular way a local gathering is to carry out the universal calls to make disciples, break bread, pray, fellowship with one another, live out the teaching of the Apostles, collaborate in the miraculous power......
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08
Dec 2017
This fall our adult Sunday school class is focusing on reclaiming our “first love,” the living, loving relationship we are called to with Jesus. Our class title comes from Revelation 2, where Jesus is speaking to the church in Ephesus: I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear evil men but have tested those who call themselves apostles but are not, and found them to be false; I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. But......
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08
Dec 2017
Most of us think of the liturgical color red as being the color of feast days. While that is true, the reality is a bit more nuanced than that. It’s more helpful to think of it as associated with the Passion of Jesus–meaning his betrayal, crucifixion and resurrection–and the works of his power, such as his ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit. It is because the association of red with Christ’s blood that we use red when remembering the death of Christian martyrs. The early church considered being killed because of......
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08
Dec 2017
Thanks be to God for the amazing work he is doing in our congregation! We are awed by how many of our congregation came and shared whatever word they had heard during Lent, from Denethor and Lord of the Rings to crows flying in tandem to our usual themes of light and darkness. Some common notes sounded during our gathering: We are called to be light in the community of Kenosha and that each of us is called to embody Christ’s light in our own unique way. (Collin C: “You gotta let the......
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